7 Most (and Least) Time Consuming Game Genres

Time… It’s become such a valuable commodity for many of us that we base all of our daily activities around how much time we have to spare. I’m sure we’ve all had to cut something out of our daily routine just because there’s not enough time. When you’re a young adult like me, with a full time job and other responsibilities, it’s honestly quite hard to find time to play video games, which is a pity because I love video games. This list is designed to show you which game genres take the most time to play through, starting with the least.

7. Platformers

When I think of platformers, I think of games such as Super Mario World, Kirby, and Mega Man. These types of games are typically broken down into individual levels or stages that you must complete. Often, you are given the opportunity to save your game after a stage, meaning that you can shut it off afterwards if you are out of time. Also, these types of games are fairly short. Megan can beat Super Mario World in just a couple of hours, whereas I… I’ll get back to you on that.

6. Third-person Shooter/Action

We go from cutesy looking character LEGO Light Kit sprites to hardcore action and destruction. For this genre, I’m thinking of examples like Max Payne and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, just to give you an idea. These games are also broken down into stages commonly referred to as “missions”, and they’re usually longer than your typical Mega Man stage. They’re almost always action-packed, so it can be easy to lose track of time. Luckily, these games are also fairly short. If you’re skilled like anyone but me, you can get through Max Payne 3 in an eight-hour day.

5. Turn-based Strategy games

SO manly different types of strategy games. It’s such a popular genre, but for this entry, I’m thinking of games like Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, and Gungnir. In these sorts of games, you control a party of characters and have to eliminate enemy forces and usually meet some sort of condition during the battle. Typically, you control all your characters, then the enemy gets to make their move. Games in this genre can be pretty lengthy and can take up several hours of your time if you’re not careful.

4. Real-time Strategy games

The next type of strategy game we have on the list is Real-time strategy. For this genre, picture games such as Age of Empires and Starcraft. In these games, you have to build up your forces by collecting resources and upgrading units. This genre ranks higher than the turn-based strategy because while some of the battles may be short, others can take several hours if you have evenly matched forces with the enemy. This can make it a very time consuming game genre.